Mission of Gravity

This book is great. Great planet, great, interesting aliens, who are, well, alien. A fine piece of work, while being explanatory you don't necessarily notice it a lot. Then the twist at the end, just beautiful. It is quite short, but you don't really know it. There is some questing involved in the plot, and it doesn't seem rushed. Highly recommended.

Never mind the way out (yet detailed and accurate) planet and its weird chemistry and physics, the meat of this book is its alien characters. First contact stories are as old as the hills, but very few have been done from the aliens' point of view. Clement created one of the most memorable characters (human or alien) in all SF - Barlennan the Explorer is that rare alien character who, despite the odds, sets out to beat the strange "humans" at their own game. I'm rereading the book right now and it's still fun even twenty years after I first read it. Highly recommended

The Bree is a fine ship, crewed by brave, if slightly greedy natives of the planet of Mesklin. They must explore uncharted waters, trade with dangerous tribes and deal with strange events. And they're only fifteen-inch caterpillars!The Captain, the brave and greedy, Barlennan has promised to help the humans, aliens of enormous size, to find a rocket they lost on the planet. The rocket is full of equipment which was to run tests and then return to orbit. The problem was that the rocket, designed to handle the high gravity, couldn't handle the gravity. The humans are willing to do anything to get it back.And in the end, they just might. A great ending.GREAT book. I love the hard science, the cool alien race, the bonus article- "Whirligig World" - in which Hal Clement tells us how he came up with the amazing, fantastic planet and the life that lived on it. Lots of humor.Funny Note: I just reviewed the book, The Jupiter Theft, a few days ago. In it the aliens are from the system of Cygnus. That's the same binary system Mr. Clement was thinking about when he started to design the planet of Mesklin.He did such a good job that the Mesklinites are in Barlowe's Guide To Extraterrestrials, Aliens And Alien Societies edited by Ben Bova, and Clifford Pickover's The Science Of Aliens.

This is one of the great classics that I found and read b/c my father strongly recommended it to me. It is a very interesting look at how the laws of physics come together to make for an interesting world, peopled by interesting folk. It is a HUGE, squat world that is spinning very rapidly. Therefore, the sensation of gravity is much, much greater at the poles that at the equator. Heavy gravity poses all sorts of interesting predicaments. It is set in the distant future but written in the 50's; it's fun to see how anachronisms sneak in completely unaware to the author (e.g. the scientists whip out their slide rules when some quick calculating is needed). This is a "must read" classic of science fiction.

I have been an avid science fiction reader since the early 50's. There is no better "hard" science fiction book than "Mission of Gravity". I have heard it called a "juvenile" book because no child could be offended by reading it, but I think only an adult can fully appreciate the science involved. Looking back on 45 years of reading science fiction, I rate "Mission of Gravity" as the very best I have ever read.